Maryland Meadworks needed help to stay open. Their community delivered.

The owners of Maryland Meadworks had spent several months agonizing over how to keep their cozy Hyattsville taproom open beyond the end of this year.

They didn’t expect their fortunes to turn in a matter of three days.

Ken Carter and Rumi Matsuyama have lived and raised their family of four near Hyattsville’s Route 1 corridor since 1993. They opened their meadery in the same area in October 2018 and have watched as their community has transformed. They’ve also felt the squeeze as the cost of living has gone up.

Without some help, they would have to close by the end of the year.

So on June 26, the couple launched a GoFundMe aiming to raise $25,000 by Aug. 15. That would allow them to sign a lease extension beyond this year.

“We were really scared,” Matsuyama said. “There was the element of we could do this and people could just not want to donate for any matter of reasons because they’re taking care of their own families and don’t have the resources. Or there are a lot of other causes out there, right?”

“When you’re a small business owner, our identity is this place, and you’re worried that you’re gonna get your feelings hurt,” she added.

Less than a week after sending their plea, supporters have already given more than $38,000 to cover operating expenses. They’re keeping the donation drive going toward a $45,000 goal to give themselves some breathing room to envision the long-term sustainability of Maryland Meadworks.

“We’re in our 60s, we could’ve just snuck out the door and said: ‘Hey, we’re retired,’” Matsuyama, 60, said. “All of this has been worth it. This experience, for us personally, let alone the community, has really changed our lives, you know? Really given us meaning and purpose and mission. I feel so lucky because not everybody gets to do that.”

Mead math

The couple is still figuring out the right path forward, but they imagine it’ll involve taking customer feedback by adding beer brewed in Prince George’s County to the menu.

Carter himself started out as a devoted home brewer in the 1980s thanks to a Christmas gift from Matsuyama. He had dreams of opening a brewpub for decades, but it wasn’t feasible while raising their two children.

He got hooked on making mead about 13 years ago when a friend introduced him to the process, which is much faster and more forgiving, Carter said. A batch of beer could take up to a year to ferment but an equivalent size of mead could take a month.

“Mead is fun. I like brewing beer, but at my age dealing with a large volume of hot liquids is not something I want to be doing,” said Carter, 63. “I can experiment way more with mead than with beer. I can use herbs, spices, fruit juices and different varieties of honey.”

On a recent visit, Carter had eight meads on tap that incorporated ingredients such as papaya, hibiscus and organic habanero peppers.

His experimentation is a response to some of the challenges meadery faces. Some people who walk in may have never had mead or have tried it once at a renaissance festival and formed an unfavorable opinion, the couple said.

But recently their main challenge has been the cost of making mead and supplying everything in the taproom. Carter drives up to a farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to purchase their honey to defray shipping costs. But prices are still creeping up, in part because beekeepers across the country are struggling to produce enough honey due to colony losses.

Carter works on meads full time but said he barely pays himself from the business because he needs to pay his five employees, among other operating costs.

The beverage industry across the region has seen highs and lows in recent years.

Denizens Brewing Co. closed its original Silver Spring location in 2023 and moved operations to its Riverdale Park outpost. Two Story Chimney Ciderworks, a cidery and gluten-free brewer in Gaithersburg, closed in December. And Gaithersburg’s Saints Row Brewing announced it would close before a group of employees purchased it.

Breweries in D.C have also reimagined themselves or closed — or, in the case of City-State Brewing, both.

But crowdfunding has been a fruitful resource for some. Silver Branch Brewing Co. expanded its Montgomery County footprint in 2025 with a campaign to support opening a Rockville location. D.C.’s newest brewpub, Urban Garden Brewing, which has roots in District Heights, sought donations in 2023 to start up.

Maryland Meadworks is taking cues from others in the state who have diversified their menus to appeal to a larger swath of customers. For the second consecutive year, brewpub and taproom closings outpaced openings nationwide, according to data from The Brewers Association.

A third space

Mastuyama works as a nonprofit technology consultant and volunteers her time working at Maryland Meadworks. But she also plays bass, guitar and mandolin in local bands, including Big Money Egg. The meadery is open Thursdays through Sundays and hosts free artistic performances nearly every night. Many of those performers have been some of the biggest backers during this donation drive, she said.

“It’s very humbling to see musicians who are donating more to your GoFundMe than they probably ever earned from gigs playing here,” Matsuyama said. “People don’t play here because they’re gonna make a ton of money. They play here because they come for a receptive audience that actually wants to listen to music.”

Shows with an eclectic mix of artists will remain part of the Maryland Meadworks’ long-term plan, the couple says. They’ve gotten what they say is an overwhelming amount of feedback and suggestions on how they can keep growing the business beyond its very modest profits.

“I don’t want to have to run a fundraiser every year just to survive,” Matsuyama said with a chuckle. “That’s another way that people can actually support us: Just come here and spend money. You don’t have to donate if you come here and spend money.”

But they both feel a great sense of gratitude for the swell of donations because they know that their patrons are facing the same tough economic realities — several longtime customers were laid off from the federal government.

“It’s incredible to me that people are stepping up like this to save a winery,” Matsuyama said. “People feel like this place is more to them than that. People refer to us as Hyattsville’s living room.”

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